Mobile games sector to consolidate
AS THE UK gaming industry asks the British government for tax breaks to protect a £2 billion a year industry, Spanish mobile games software company, Lemonquest, is predicting a shake-up.Bernard Seco, licensing manager at Lemonquest, told the INQ he expected "to see further industry consolidation as the smaller companies in the mobile gaming space are unable to keep up with the necessary investment in technology."
He suggested, for example, that the smaller gaming companies might become specialists in just one area – say Symbian games - and effectively turn into developers for the bigger gaming companies and aggregators.Games Investor Consulting recently estimated that out of the entire games development industry in the UK, over half of the independent games developers disappeared between 2000 and 2006.
But Tony Pearce from leading mobile games aggregator, Player X, added, "In the mobile games value chain, it is of huge importance to the industry that large aggregators pick up games from smaller publishers and open up distribution to operators.
The mobile games business will never be about three big publishers. When you look at other entertainment industries, such as music, it's important to offer small publishers and independents an opportunity. Would the film industry be as innovative and dynamic if there were only three Hollywood studios making films? " Pearce asked.
Seco argued that it is wrong to concentrate on just one technology when considering innovation in mobile gaming. He was referring in particular to ARM putting console-like 3D graphics into mobile phone chips.Out of all the new mobile technologies, Seco rated the advent of the accelerometer as probably most important, followed by sensors, shake-awareness, and touch screens as all contributing to "higher playability".
He conceded that Lemonquest's latest game for the Nokia N95 – Circulate – had yet to take advantage of that handset's accelerometer, though.Most mobile games software houses at present concentrate on Java and maybe Symbian, too. However, Seco warned that the Iphone, the Google/Android platform and Flash Lite also cannot be ignored.
These might account for, perhaps, 10 per cent of the total mobile games market but 10 per cent of revenue is a significant loss for developers, Seco says."When we arrive next year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it will be a very different world [for mobile games] compared to what we saw back in February," Seco predicted.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net
He suggested, for example, that the smaller gaming companies might become specialists in just one area – say Symbian games - and effectively turn into developers for the bigger gaming companies and aggregators.Games Investor Consulting recently estimated that out of the entire games development industry in the UK, over half of the independent games developers disappeared between 2000 and 2006.
But Tony Pearce from leading mobile games aggregator, Player X, added, "In the mobile games value chain, it is of huge importance to the industry that large aggregators pick up games from smaller publishers and open up distribution to operators.
The mobile games business will never be about three big publishers. When you look at other entertainment industries, such as music, it's important to offer small publishers and independents an opportunity. Would the film industry be as innovative and dynamic if there were only three Hollywood studios making films? " Pearce asked.
Seco argued that it is wrong to concentrate on just one technology when considering innovation in mobile gaming. He was referring in particular to ARM putting console-like 3D graphics into mobile phone chips.Out of all the new mobile technologies, Seco rated the advent of the accelerometer as probably most important, followed by sensors, shake-awareness, and touch screens as all contributing to "higher playability".
He conceded that Lemonquest's latest game for the Nokia N95 – Circulate – had yet to take advantage of that handset's accelerometer, though.Most mobile games software houses at present concentrate on Java and maybe Symbian, too. However, Seco warned that the Iphone, the Google/Android platform and Flash Lite also cannot be ignored.
These might account for, perhaps, 10 per cent of the total mobile games market but 10 per cent of revenue is a significant loss for developers, Seco says."When we arrive next year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it will be a very different world [for mobile games] compared to what we saw back in February," Seco predicted.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net
